Probably the weirdest thing about all these Republicans who want to shut down the government to prevent the implementation of ObamaCare isn’t even their delusion that this would actually stop ObamaCare. The weirdest thing is that they are totally disregarding the fact that the 2012 election was a referendum on ObamaCare, and they lost.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
30 Comments
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
Do you think Republicans even remember the name of the guy who ran In 2012? Let alone anything else about the election?
Who?
BooMan, the House represented the real people’s referendum in 2012. Oh, stop whining that a million more people voted for House Democratic candidates, that’s just sour grapes.
As far as the Presidential election, voterfraudromneyrinofreeloadersvotingselfbenefitsobamaliarliberalmedia!
The entire party needs to be in straightjackets. All of them.
Rather, sent to Gitmo for economic terrorism instead. For life.
In the minds of the Republican party and their minions in Congress, they didn’t lose. They NEVER lose. They are simply constitutionally unable to cede power even when an election tells them they must. I see no way for the GOP to return to sanity and moderation. It must be electorally stomped into the ground and a different party which wants to actually govern must arise from its remains.
Yes. We must crush them. There’s no other alternative at this point.
Between the fire breathers and those that have at least a little sense, the R’s will not be able to coble together even a majority of the majority to pass the spending and debt ceiling bills. So, to avoid calamity, Boehner will need substantial Dem support. That’ll piss ’em off even more. I’m glad I don’t walk in their shoes.
Ah, you think they care about the will of the people. That’s where you went wrong.
Those weren’t voters. Those were minorities who wanted handouts.
Republicans won the House in 2012 and they are running for the House again to at least stop the black dude from being able to advance his agenda. In their gerrymandered constituencies they are more vulnerable to a challenge from the tea party right than they are to a Democrat, and so it is to the right that they will run – collectively and individually. As long as they can ward off that challenge, it doesn’t matter what happens to the rest of the country. In fact there is no “rest of the country” – there are Red Districts and Blue districts, and they ARE effectively different countries.
It reminds me of the latter days of Apartheid South Africa where whites sought first of all to coral blacks into Bantustans, and when that failed, to build enclaves of their own as virtual independent republics. If they can’t win the USA they will win their State, and if they can’t win their State, they will win their District, and if they can’t win their District, they will win their small town or ‘burb, and if they can’t win their town they will win their gated community and form militias to keep out the Trayvon Martins of this world.
Their world view will never change, merely the parameters of that world view, and where the defensive lines are drawn. In their heart of hearts the smarter ones know they are fighting a losing matter, but they are trying to put off the evil day. Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven…
Yes, it’s really funny because his agenda is their agenda. But but but … Benghazi!
I don’t agree. I think Obama and most Democrats are actually trying to make the USA as a state of many minorities work. I don’t think most Republicans really want that – unless they can roool it…
Absolutely. If you want to argue that Obama shares the Republicans’ agenda on the economy or national security, I would still disagree, but at least you’d have a leg to stand on. But we’re talking about race and culture and xenophobia here. We’re talking about people who want a mono-ethnic state, and if you’re saying Obama and the Democrats share their agenda here you’re saying they want to stop black people from voting and deport everybody with a Spanish surname except Ted Cruz. Leaving aside humanity and morality, you’re saying they share the Republicans’ agenda of suppressing Democratic voters.
Yes, I was talking about the economic agenda.
Your analysis rings altogether true. I live in one of those red counties,congressional district and states.Literally and figuratively they’re all about retreating into gated communities, while simultaneously gutting the New Deal, the public schools, and any other program that just might benefit minorities. In the process they are destroying what made this country work. It really makes me sad and deeply angry.
In military terms it’s called a scorched earth retreat: don’t leave anything that might aid the enemy behind…
Well…yeah. This is actually quite understandable. If the shoe was on the other foot…if some Ratpublican who wanted to roll back the civil rights movement’s social advances (meager as they have actually proven to be), put women back in the kitchen barefoot and spring the corporate world loose from any sort of oversight was in the White House with control of the Senate, how “extreme” do you think DemRats would act? Now of course you could say with some amount of justification that all of those things are “bad” and all of Obama’s aims are “good” (his stated aims, anyway), but these Ratpubs are true believers. Just as are you, Booman.
It’s not weird” what they are doing. It’s just mainstream politics in action. You want to fight with them, then fight, and may the truest believers win. But don’t call them “weird.” They are just like your ancestors and mine, tragically stranded here in the 21st Century and headed for the tarpits of history. Bet on it. Kick ’em in the ass and wish them well.
AG.
Democrats/Progressives to fight back.
The problem is is that Obamacare isn’t the single payer system (Medicare for Everyone/ Medicare for All) that is what is needed.
We need better than Medicare. People can go broke on Medicare too. We need to establish that Health Care is a right not a product. Co-pays and deuctibles have to go. There are other ways to deal with hypochondriacs than forcing everyone to pay to see a Doctor. I can well afford the $20 co-pays on my Insurance. Since she charges $370 for an office visit (but accepts $97 from BCBS), my 20% Medicare B co-pay would be $74, a bit steep, so you need a “Medicare Supplement” and that doesn’t pay everything, either. Still, I am talking about just a basic visit with nothing else. When you enter the wild and wacky world of Hospital billing, 20% costs (100% for the first day!) mount up fast.
We need better than Medicare. We need National Health.
To these guys, only one election matters: their own.
Does it matter so long as they want to kill the bill, too? Does it matter who peels the vampire squid of health care financing off you?
Don’t we have to take our allies where we find them?
What did they lose? Not the political power or will to try anything legal (so far) to obstruct an agenda with which they disagree.
It’s true that they’ve got a losing hand. They won’t stop Obamacare. They might not even shut down the government. But if there a chance, what even though they’re holding a pair of threes and we’re holding a full house, that might squeeze a few final concessions from us? There is. And is there a certainty that they will squeeze every last bit of red-meat base-feeding out of this, to bring out the crazy in the midterms? There is.
We are way past delusions. They are having hallucinations. Teabaggers are hearing voices and I’m positive they are seeing things that do not exist. For example, they still claim Obama spending (spending they approved) is adding a trillion dollars to the deficit. What is going to happen when people in the red states go online and find their ins. premiums are lower? I cannot imagine what their next move will be.
What is going to happen when people in the red states go online and find their ins. premiums are lower? I cannot imagine what their next move will be.
My guess is that they will continue to vote for people who are nakedly opposed to their own economic interests. I really do think that they will cut their nose off to spite their face, simply because they truly believe what they have been told by their media and their political leaders on the far right.
Living where I do, having all sorts of GOP relatives and neighbors and friends, and seeing all their posts on Facebook, I can assure you your prognosis is correct. Today I engaged a former long ago school friend, now a FB acquaintance who posted “do you remember when the President was on TV rarely and was an inspiring hopeful figure?”
In an effort to make him and his friends own up to their very obvious objections to a person of color in the White House,another of his friends, a female, posted that she was “disgusted by and scared of the President.” I asked her to provide specific examples, knowing that she could not and knowing that she was unaware of how revealing about her that sentence was.
It’s too wearing and time consuming to engage them often and push back against their memes but on occasion I just have to do it.
“Creating their own reality”–after the polls proving Romney would win last November, the Heritage poll proving nobody wants Obamacare.
They may really not find out about the lower premiums though. Same people are still complaining about taxes going up over the past five year–they clearly don’t look at their own actual numbers.
I would love to see one line added to the 1040 form — a calculation of the effective tax rate. I honestly don’t think people understand that the refund they get is a reduction of what they paid paycheck by paycheck. I think people internalize that their paycheck has money taken out of it, and then experience their “tax refund” is a wholly different psychological phenomenon where they get to screw the government back.
This is awesome. Now even Fox News is coming for your precious bodily fluids.